


Our Silent Duet of Shields and Spells

by Mirgaxus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, M/M, POV Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-15 13:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirgaxus/pseuds/Mirgaxus
Summary: A special bond develops between a tank and a healer who play regularly together on a high difficulty level. It’s in the learnt intuitiveness of how the other thinks; in the mutual respect of each other’s strengths and skills; in the earned trust in the other to keep you alive.It’s no surprise that there exists a cliche about tanks and healers ending up dating each others.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I used to be a big MMO/WOW trash years ago, and I've wanted to write Wolfstar/Wow fic for a good while. I got finally a big inspiration for the story the other day, and here it is!

Sirius remembered how James declared that he wanted to be a paladin tank when they first started playing, when they were just kids, thirteen or fourteen. Something about being the fancy hero of the group, leading them to their holy victory.

 

Remus was bullied into becoming their healer. Peter picked a mage, a damage dealer class, because he had read that it was an easy class. Sirius himself chose a rogue, another damage dealer class, because it sounded cool and so him.

 

Their first foray to leveling the characters to the maximum level had been a joy, an exercise in noobness. 

 

Sirius had enjoyed trolling the others on afk pauses, by sneaking behind mobs and stabbing them and vanishing to the safety of the shadows, to snicker when others would scream when they realized that their characters were being destroyed. His class was the ultimate troll pick, and he fucking  _ loved  _ it.

 

James enjoyed pulling stupid stunts as well, like taking pieces of his armor off in the middle of a fight, piece by piece until Remus noticed why his job as a healer was getting suspiciously harder and harder. 

 

Peter took pride in performing well as a mage, although Sirius made sure to remind him often that that was not a thing to take pride in, not when you had only a few spells to spam and you got to be in safe ranged distance far from the enemies all the time.

 

Remus swore repeatedly how he hated his role, how it made him sweat and stress and how he hated healing James, who was all yolo about his role as a tank. Remus switched to shadow priest sometimes (a damage dealing specialization that priests could also perform), but it made their dungeon queues longer. They always ended up bribing/blackmailing/threatening him back to grudgingly healing their sorry asses.

 

They had been new to the game, and they had been bad, but none of that had mattered when they were bickering and shit talking and figuring their way through the game together.

 

~*~

 

It was so odd to remember those times, only a few years later, Sirius thought, as he stood behind the group, the adrenaline starting to pump in his veins, the relentless disco album hyping him up for the dungeon.

 

In hindsight, he could only scoff at how he had thought something like damage dealing could hold his attention for long. It was a boring role, all about perfecting your spell/ability rotation, with no variance between plays, with no true challenges.

 

“Pads, you ready?” asked Remus, his voice coming smooth and warm through Sirius’s headsets. Remus’s ridiculous character, a big cow-man, a warrior Tauren named ‘MooMoony’, stood next to the gate, ready to soon open the entrance and start the timer.

 

“Always,” Sirius answered. “Ready to get spanked?”

 

Remus snorted. “As long as you’re there to heal the bruises.”

 

“Let’s cut the flirting and do this shit,” said James, making Peter snicker. “I picked up a new helmet with the PVP points, and it has some sick stats. I’m ready to fucking blow the damage meters. I’m going to fucking melt these mobs, so be ready to set a fast pace, Moons. Or I’m gonna run ahead of you and pick more mobs.”

 

“Who's flirting now, trying to make Worms swoon with your antics,” grunted Sirius.

 

Remus chuckled, a warm trickle of sound that made Sirius’s neck shiver. “Prongs, don’t get too excite. This Mythic+ is hard shit, and we gotta concentrate. Did you check the strategy video links I posted on Discord yesterday?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Hit the baddies, run, beat the timer, profit.”

 

Remus groaned.

 

James laughed. “Don’t sweat it, Moons. I did check the main points.”

 

“Are we gonna do this or not?” asked Sirius. “My buff potions and flasks are gonna run out, and they are fucking pricey shit.”

 

“Pads, you lazy fucker, you didn’t even pay for that shit yourself-”

 

Remus interrupted him, “He is right. I’m starting it.  _ Let’s do this shit.” _ Sirius could hear the excited smile in his voice.

 

3…

 

2…

 

1…

 

And they rushed through the opening gate.

 

~*~

 

It was dancing.

 

Sirius didn’t think, didn’t have time to think when they were playing on this level, with their gear dozens of levels below of what it should be for running through this high level dungeon comfortably. His play was pure skill and intuition at this point, after long, long time of perfecting it. He was in a state of flow, and he felt  _ alive. _

 

It was balancing his spell cooldowns, his mana. It was playing with fire, keeping everyone alive. It was about staying aware of where everyone in the group was standing, what they were doing. It was being on the constant lookout for the misstep in their choreography.

 

If someone made a mistake, it was down to Sirius to react to it and find a good fix in a split of a second. He had a plan for each encounter, but he had to stay focused, had to be ready to change that plan and improvise, had to be ready to think on his feet and come up with creative solutions.

 

Remus had hated it, the stressful unpredictability of it. And for a long time Sirius had scoffed at it, assuming that it must be the most boring stuff ever.

 

Now he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Healing came to him like second nature.

 

~*~

 

Most of all, it was a dance with Remus. 

 

Yes, they were all a part of a delicate group choreography, but when it came down to it, it was a duet between him and Remus. 

 

The damage dealers were in a competition against each others, finding their motivation from outdoing each other’s damage, fighting against each others to come out of a dungeon as the top dog.

 

Remus and Sirius were outsiders to that competition; they were in their own world. They were performers, they were partners; both of them handling their own responsibilities and counting on the other.

 

On the surface, Remus was leading, setting the pace; in reality, Sirius knew and trusted him to set the pace according to  _ Sirius _ and Sirius’s capabilities, according to Remus’s fine tuned intuition on how far he could push Sirius’s healing output.

 

Just like Sirius kept his eye on Remus all through the dance, listening to his pulse, watching out for him, knowing when to step in with big saves or when to concentrate on others and let Remus handle himself; just like that, he knew that Remus was keeping an eye on him, always aware on where Sirius was and how he was doing and ready to slow down.

 

It was intimate. It was a silent bond forged through hundreds of hours of playing together, of learning each other’s ways.

 

~*~

 

“Fuck,” said Peter, a second after Sirius had spotted an upcoming disaster.

 

A group of mobs that was not supposed to be triggered into the fight was charging towards them, just because Peter had taken a few steps into the wrong direction.

 

They were already in the middle of hard battle. Everyone was in half health; there were severe “damage over time curses” on everyone, relentlessly cutting at their health bars each second that Sirius had to keep fighting against; there were random spikes of damages and stunning spells that he had to react fast to heal; there were sorcerer enemies in fight that they had to keep interrupting from blowing up them all.

 

Sirius topped off his own health; he threw a refreshed shield on Remus; he swapped his own full health bar with James’s that was at ten percent; and then Sirius promptly died to the mass of the beasts.

 

Knowing to expect it, Sirius instantly accepted Remus’s battle resurrection (a spell that could only be used once every ten minutes by the group), and he was back in fight. Peter had died as well, but compared to James and the third damage dealer, he was the one that was most sacrificable.

 

Half a minute later they were back on track, running forward, dozens of enemies laying dead behind them. Sirius had resurrected Peter once the fight had been over, with a regular resurrection.

 

“Did you guys see that amaze damage I did there?” James yelled. “Fucking hell yess! I screenshotted it and I’m gonna post it on guild forums! Evans  _ has _ to recruit me to the main raiding team when she sees that. Good job Wormy on pulling them!”

 

“Fucking hell, Wormtail,” said Sirius, although his grin was wide, and he felt alive and his heart was pumping and his excitement was up the roof. He  _ loved _ it when shit went wrong, and he loved it especially when they managed to salvage the situation anyway. “Don’t do that shit again, we nearly died. And now we’re out of battle rezzes.”

 

“You saved it well, though!” said Peter.

 

“He did,” Remus said, and fuck, Sirius was a goner for his praise, delivered in that smooth, warm approval. “Let’s focus, guys. We have two minutes left, if we want to beat the timer and get the best loots.”

 

~*~

 

They didn’t do it before the timer had ticked down, not this time, because of the mishap with the mobs. They did finish though, and got good loot, even though it was not the top tier they had aimed for.

 

“Good play, still,” said Remus.

 

“We’re gonna do it next week,” said James cheerfully. “Now, excuse me, I’m gonna log off and go brag about my  _ fucking amaze _ damage.”

 

Sirius groaned, though he was fighting off a fond smile. “You fucking damage dealers. It’s all numbers to you, isn’t it.”

 

“Says an elf in a dress,” said James.

 

“I didn’t have time to transmogrify it to something else!”

 

“Or maybe you just like wearing pretty dresses, hmm?”

 

“Why are you so focused on my dress, Potter? Worried that you won’t see me in it again?”

 

“Right!” Remus said, clearly holding a laugh back. “I’m logging off too, I still need to finish the homework for tomorrow.”

 

“You finished it last week, you derp,” said Sirius.

 

“I noticed that I have to edit some bits in it before returning. Good game, guys.”

 

Sirius rolled his eyes, and logged off the game himself too and disconnected from the Discord.

 

He didn’t have any homework to pointlessly work into perfection, but he did need to go have a good wank.

 

Healing came like a second nature to him, but also, it left him feeling horny as hell.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I reread my first chapter few times, getting more and more excited each time by the fact that "YESS FINALLY I HAVE A WOW/WOLFSTAR FIC TO READ".
> 
> Then I started to crave for more. So. Obviously I had to *write* more, since nobody else is writing this odd crossovery combo :'(
> 
> Also, upped the rating to Mature. Might become Explicit & bit kinky. I don't know lmao.

Sirius hated raid healing.

 

In raids, there were _other_ healers. And he was supposed to _cooperate_ with them, even though that sucked the joy out of the role. Not only were other healers most of the time stupid assholes, Sirius also didn’t have _any_ faith in their abilities.

 

Dungeons with a small group were fun, challenging, and where ultimately he was forced to rely only on his own and on Remus’s skills.

 

But raids were a whole another matter. There were simply too many people. Two tanks, handful of healers, dozen of damage dealers… James thrived there, the fucking attention seeker, but Sirius himself couldn’t honestly give a fuck. He prefered it when it was just the Marauders (and, of course, a random third damage dealer they had to pick up from ‘Looking For Group’ tools, but whom they didn’t invite to their voice channel because who in their right mind wanted to deal with the awkwardness of having to talk with randoms).

 

Sirius didn’t enjoy saving just about anyone’s ass.

 

Sirius had a deal with Evans, though, which made Friday casual raid nights somewhat doable. If he showed up, he was Remus’s dedicated healer - it was automatically his main job in the raid, and that was that. The other healers focused on Evans (who often played as the second tank) and on the rest of the raid.

 

Sometimes Remus shamelessly used this deal to get Sirius to join the raid night. Goaded him to come, saying it was so that Remus wouldn’t have to rely on other healers, saying it was because Remus liked knowing that Sirius was there having his back.

 

(Sirius didn’t want to admit how much the thought of others playing with Remus sparked something mad at him, something that smelt like jealousy or protectiveness.)

 

~*~

 

Sirius was happy when the raid was over for the night. He wouldn’t have gone at all, if the guild hadn’t been short of one healer and Remus hadn’t begged him to come, wanting a chance for better gear.

 

He logged off and disconnected from the guild’s Discord channel, which had become an annoying circle jerk over loots and damage meters, just like always after the raid. James had got a good upgrade trinket, and was doing his best to be as pathetic as possible in chat to win his way to the main raiding nights.

 

Sirius stretched his limbs, and leaned back in his chair, to look at the said friend. “I can’t believe that you want to do that shit _more_ often.”

 

James snorted. He didn’t take his eyes from the screen, and continued typing.

 

Sirius peered to look at James’s screen. “Are you harassing Evans in private messages? Dude, that’s not cool.”

 

_“She_ started it, _she_ sent me a message!” said James, with a wide, excited grin. “I’ll be invited to the next main team raid on Sunday!”

 

“Wow. Grats.” Sirius stood up and shoved James lightly. “Good luck on your way to complete nerdiness.”

 

“Oh, piss off, mister ‘I’m gonna get on top 20 list of the healing Proving Grounds of the server’.”

 

“Well, didn’t take too long,” said Sirius smugly.

 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re good, now fuck off and let me chat with my love of life in peace.”

 

Sirius rolled his eyes, but left the room, as he was planning to do so anyway.

 

They shared the small room in the high school campus, just like Peter and Remus did down the hallway.

 

Sirius had only taken a few steps along the hallway when Remus stepped out to the hallway from his own room.

 

Sirius smirked.

 

Remus raised his eyebrow, smiled, and turned to walk towards the communal kitchen without a word.

 

Sirius followed.

 

~*~

 

When they got to the empty kitchen, Remus turned the stove on and started to gather the ingredients.

 

Sirius stepped in to fill the pot with the water and put it on the stove.

 

It was another kind of a dance. A routine they had developed. Cooking together, in the middle of the night, after a raid night. It had started when Remus once bribed Sirius to join the raid with a promise of baked goods afterwards, and it just kinda had stuck since then. Sometimes they baked, sometimes they prepared food for the next week.

 

“You know what could be fun?” Remus asked suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence, while they worked on the food. “Tanking together. In a raid.”

 

“What? But I’ve never even tanked-”

 

Remus shrugged, looking nonchalant. “I could teach you.”

 

It was an interesting offer. “I’d probably hate it.”

 

“Maybe. But you love challenges. And it’s something you haven’t tried before.”

 

Sirius considered it. “I don’t have any class leveled up that could be used as a tank.”

 

Remus smiled. “Well, we could level new characters together. It’s a good idea anyway. You would be learning tanking along the way, with easier dungeons first. And I could heal you, so our dungeon queues would be really short.”

 

Sirius raised his eyebrow. “You hate healing.”

 

“I wouldn’t mind healing you,” Remus said with a smile and stood up. “Tomorrow? After dinner?”

 

“Alright,” said Sirius and watched as Remus left the kitchen, presumably for a toilet break.

 

A mad spark of instinct inside him yelled at him to run after Remus, to not break the rule number one of the tank-healer rulebook, _‘Never break the line of sight between each other’._ He pushed away that instinct, amusedly. Instead he turned away, stirred the spaghetti in the pot and thought about Remus’s offer.

 

He was… well, part of him was apprehensive about the idea. Remus had experience with healing, but Sirius had no experience with tanking, so he was likely going to make a fool out of himself.

 

Also, what if Remus decided that he did enjoy healing, after all, and he would stop tanking… they couldn’t do dungeons together as two healers...

 

Fuck. What had he agreed to. Sirius scowled.

 

~*~

 

They had started power leveling their new characters straight after dinner, reaching the level 15 in an hour.

 

“Pads, you ready?” asked Remus, his voice as soothing as ever.

 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that now?”

 

Remus chuckled. “Well, it’s a habit by now for me. Ready to queue for your first dungeon as a tank?”

 

“Let’s do it,” said Sirius, and queued them up.

 

~*~

 

It was _weird._

 

It wasn’t hard, of course not. He had played the game for years, and he knew these starter dungeons inside and out. And as he played as healer, he had naturally kept always an eye on what the tanks were doing and so he knew pretty well what to do.

 

Still, it was weird, to run as the first for once, going against everything that he had done for years, and pulling the mobs, engaging, focusing on keeping all the enemies hitting himself and not the others.

 

“You can run faster and pull more, I’ve got you,” said Remus, his voice in Sirius’s ear, making it feel like he was right there next to him. “Even if you can’t keep all the mobs on you, the damage dealers can survive a hit or two and kill them fast enough.”

 

“Trying to tell me that I’m slow as a snail, Moony?”

 

Remus chuckled. “Pretty much. I didn’t take you to be a cautious tank.”

 

“Didn’t want to put your pretty fur in risk,” Sirius said, but picked up the pace.

 

~*~

 

It _was_ weird, but Sirius decided, after couple more hours, after many more levels and unlocking more abilities, that it was _good._

 

Tanking itself wasn’t as fun as healing, nowhere near so, even though Sirius could admit that the change in a perspective _was_ a fun mind twister.

 

No, the _‘good’_ part came from from how intimate it felt yet again.

 

It was just two of them in voice chat and playing together, grouping up with the random damage dealers. Remus kept giving him pointers in his warm, soothing voice, kept giving him gentle guidance on the subtler tricks of the trade, that weren’t necessary at the easy low level dungeons, but which would be good habits to develop if he ever wanted to tank on high levels.

 

Sirius felt like he could listen to Remus’s tanking lessons for _days,_ even though the newness of tanking had wore off already. Hell, he would _pay_ to get recordings of all Remus’s chuckles and dry barbs and groans at jerky random group members they got.

 

~*~

 

After they were done for the evening, Sirius had to take a shower.

 

There was none of that adrenaline packed energy that he always had after a good hectic healing run, but he couldn’t shake Remus’s voice from his head. He couldn’t stop imagining Remus being there in the shower with him, using that gentle, steady voice to guide him, to tell him to spread his legs, to tell him to touch himself, _‘Here, if you do this, it’ll feel so good, yes, just like that’._

 

Sirius had long ago decided that he wasn’t going to shame himself over what or who he thought about when he wanked, so he let go and let himself imagine and feel Remus pressing against his back, murmuring in his ear in that voice that melted Sirius’s bones and which had for a good while added its own secret thrill to the dungeon runs.

 

~*~

 

When Sirius got out of the shower, he wasn’t sure whether he was looking forward for more leveling together or not.

 

Scratch that. Of course he was. He had never much cared for doing what was wise, like putting a stop on something that drove him this mad and was probably going to make him jump Remus’s bones sooner or later.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

During the lunch on Monday, Remus asked James if he could loan his laptop later in the evening.

 

Sirius was too distracted to think through the implications. He was on a mission to find all the most cringey lovesick memes to send to James. The prat had been insufferable the whole night after his first main team raid, prattling about how amaze Evans was and how he couldn’t wait to show her how he was more than just some random joker in the guild chat.

 

“Of course, mate. What do you need it for?” said James, ignoring his phone on the table, which was buzzing every few seconds with Whatsapp notifications from Sirius.

 

Remus shrugged. “I was thinking how silly it is to level our characters together with Sirius while we both stay in our own rooms. I might as well come hang around in your room and play on your laptop. It’s not good for hard content runs, but it’s good enough for leveling.”

 

“Mhm, good idea,” said Sirius, and snickered at the newest meme he had found. He sent it to Remus, with a text ‘OMG THIS IS SO PRONGS’, and smiled proudly when Remus shook his head and snickered at it too.

 

Later Sirius would blame it partly on James. _James_ had kept him up whole night and _James_ (by being such a dork) had forced Sirius to tease him all through the lunch, distracting Sirius from upcoming doom; therefore _James_ was responsible that Sirius had not realized in time what a _sweet hell_ he had agreed to.

 

~*~

 

Sirius wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to handle this.

 

The usual buzz of excitement preluding the gaming session was running through him while he was logging in to the game… while in the corner of his eye he could see Remus getting into a comfortable position on Sirius’s bed, lying down on his stomach, Sirius’s pillows under his chest, James’s laptop propped against the headboard.

 

Most of the time Sirius wasn’t a fan of thinking things through beforehand. He wasn’t too bothered by that trait in himself - in his opinion it was honestly a waste of time to think _too_ much. The life was unpredictable mess, and he would have missed so many good things in his life if he had paused to plan the next steps or to second guess his decisions or to mull over his own motivations.

 

It was better to just go with the flow.

 

But sometimes… he ended up hating that exact same nonchalant attitude when it led him into these kind of situations. Hated that he hadn’t considered beforehand that _‘oh yes, obviously it’s going to be a torture to play together with Remus in the same room, how didn’t you think about that, you moron?’._

 

Sirius was hyperaware that they were going to be alone soon. James was gathering his gym stuff in his bag and prattling about some nonsense about how his biceps had grown since the last week. _Poor delusional prat,_ thought Sirius distantly, and tapped his fingers against his desk while he waited for the game world to load on screen before his eyes.

 

“See you later, prats,” said James finally, and ruffled Remus’s hair. Remus growled and swatted his hand away, but not fast enough to prevent his hair getting messed up.

 

Great. Sirius stared at his screen, ignoring Remus lying on _Sirius’s bed,_ with now a _deliciously_ ruffled imitation of a bed hair.

 

Just as Sirius had started to crave an evening of reading through _‘How to turn a straight guy into gay!’_ articles again instead of gaming (lately he had _really_ started to feel that Remus should broaden his horizons, but he didn’t know yet how to approach the subject), Remus logged in and sent Sirius a group invite.

 

“Ready, Pads?” the devil-in-jumper asked Sirius, in a steady and calm voice, as if absolutely nothing was wrong; for once not through headsets, but from right next to him, just a few feets away.

 

“No,” muttered Sirius.

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

Sirius sighed and accepted the group invite.

 

~*~

 

Sirius kept playing poorly. He knew it. He knew that Remus knew it.

 

He just couldn’t concentrate.

 

If he had been healing, the distraction wouldn’t have made too much of a difference - healing was so automatic for him, and child’s play on non-Mythic dungeons. But tanking still required _thinking_ , and right now he wasn’t very capable of that.

 

Not when the combination of ‘Remus and playing the game’ seemed to have lately become his biggest kink.

 

After Sirius died for the third time in the dungeon, due to his own stupid missteps, he groaned, leaned back in his chair and took a long drink from his water bottle. He knew his cheeks were flaming (he had always hated how easily he blushed), from embarrassment over poor play and from being so on edge.

 

“What’s wrong?” asked Remus.

 

Sirius shrugged and didn’t look at him. “Just an off day, I guess,” he muttered, put the water bottle away, and accepted Remus’s resurrection.

 

They finished the dungeon, with an annoyingly ‘helpful’ random party member telling Sirius to keep practicing and sharing some tricks on how to survive better next time. Sirius told them to fuck off, and left the dungeon.

 

Sirius could hear Remus typing; probably apologizing for the internet random on Sirius’s behalf. It made Sirius even more annoyed.

 

“Do you want to change characters?” Remus asked.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Remus shrugged. “We can change to our main characters. Do some dungeons or PVP. If you’re more in a mood for healing.”

 

Sirius threw him a glance. Remus was looking at him with a puzzled frown. Sirius looked quickly away before Remus could somehow discern through eye contact what exactly was bothering Sirius.

 

“Or if you aren’t in a mood for playing, that’s fine, of course.”

 

Sirius bit his lip. He should say _‘yeah, let’s stop for today, I’m not feeling good, my gayness is acting up, and I’m pretty sure you’re straight and would scream at me for jumping your platonic bones’._ Or something along those lines, but with less confessions that could scare Remus off.

 

But when had he ever been wise?

 

“Sure,” Sirius said instead and logged off to the character selection screen to change to his elf priest ‘Grimming’.

 

~*~

 

Random Battlegrounds were chaos. Sirius loved it. Usually it took some goading to get Remus join, but today he only nodded and queued them up after Sirius’s suggestion.

 

In few minutes they joined the ‘Capture the Flag’ match of ten random players versus ten other randoms.

 

Since Random matches were all about silly fun, with players of varying skill levels and gear, Sirius and Remus only half heartedly joined on objectives and on trying to win the game.

 

Mostly they just had fun, ran around as a duo, and hunted for other players.

 

Back in familiar turf, Sirius was able to somewhat relax. Or not precisely relax - rather, he was able to lose himself again into the game, into the familiar rhythm of it.

 

Healing in PVP was a different beast to the dungeons - in here, _Sirius_ was the main target, the one that enemy players tried to get down, because healers were the game changers. He had to stay on the move, watch out for the rogues ambushing him. In here, Sirius always ended up healing _himself_ the most; Remus’s job was to stun the enemies, kill them, stop them from destroying Sirius.

 

It was a flurry of action, of spells and shields; of humans they fought against being both utterly predictable and unpredictable. Sirius loved it; it was dancing and martial arts mixed together.

 

He relaxed, and started to really enjoy having Remus there. Somewhere through the match, Sirius started to throw quick smiles to Remus whenever they got themselves through a particularly nasty fight… and then that became addictive _fast,_ and he found himself fighting off the urge of stealing glances at Remus every few seconds.

 

He had never before got a proper chance to appreciate how _hot_ Remus looked like when he was playing; full of focused concentration, his eyes wide and alive while flickering around the screen, his cheeks slightly tinted with the excitement, his mouth twitching every now and then, the tongue darting out to wet the lips, the teeth pulling at his lower lip…

 

Sure, they had played before in the same room, but it had been well before Remus’s presence had started to do strange things to Sirius’s heart rate.

 

“Let’s get the next flag,” said Remus after they got rid of the annoying druid that had been bothering them. “We’ll win, if we get it delivered.”

 

Sirius checked the map of the battleground he had open on the bottom right of his screen, with all their teammates represented in real time as tiny dots. Their flag carrier was soon in their own homebase to deliver the flag.

 

“Sure,” said Sirius and threw speed boosts on both of them, making them rush towards the enemy base.

 

~*~

 

They won the match.

 

Sirius leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile. After hours of playing as a tank, it felt  _good_ to be healing, to be doing the one thing he absolutely excelled at. To have some of his healing itches scratched again.

 

He turned his head, and saw Remus already looking at him, with a crooked smile and sparkling eyes. “‘Off day’, my arse,” said Remus fondly, with his voice full of that deliciously rolling warmth and excitement over a good play that Sirius was used to hear filtered through his headsets, from the safe distance. Hearing it from so close, while looking at Remus, while seeing the smile that Sirius could usually only hear, made Sirius _melt._ “That was a good play.”

 

Sirius could feel himself blush, but he did his best attempt at ‘not affected by you at all’ act. He shrugged, and said, “Well, it was just a Random Battleground. I would have quit the whole game if I had messed up there.”

 

Remus’s smile turned soft. “Good thing then that you didn’t. I really like playing together. We make a good team.”

 

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. He couldn’t look away from Remus, from the eyes that seemed to be seeing through him, and fuck, hadn’t he _precisely_ decided earlier to _not_ make too much eye contact-

 

Sirius cleared his dry throat. “Yeah. We do.”

 

Remus licked his lips, and Sirius couldn’t help but follow the movement, before looking back up, at Remus, at Remus who was looking back intensely-

 

Of course, it was then that James barged in, all sweaty and smelly and loud from the gym, and completely obvious to the way his friends suddenly dropped eye contact with each others, or how Remus hastily shut the laptop, muttered his thanks to James for loaning it, and rushed away from the room.

 

“Good game?” asked James from Sirius and flopped on his own bed, still disgustingly stinking, and started scrolling through something on his phone.

 

“Yeah,” said Sirius, and reached to take a long drink from his water bottle, his mind reeling.

 

He had a sometimes overactive imagination, but he was quite certain that he hadn’t just imagined _that._

 

Whatever ‘that’ was.


End file.
